I think Disney intentionally sent it out to be buried. It doesn't fit into their currenttentpole strategy of Disney remakes/Marvel/Star Wars for live-action films, and recent live-action films outside that mold that they released were underperformers (The Finest Hours and Tomorrowland).
Their deal with DreamWorks (who originally produced The BFG, but is being branded under Spielberg's Amblin label) has also gone south in recent years (Spielberg's Bridge of Spies, for example, failed to break even domestically in spite of its critical acclaim), and with the deal set to expire this year, Disney probably wanted to get their remaining DW films out the door as soon as possible.
tl;dr version of above. Thanks Bronson!